


May the Bridges I Burn Light the Way

by PepperCat



Series: Velvet Detonation [6]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Breathing space, Cold, Communication, Consequences, Gen, Guns, Hostage Situations, Implicit Death Threats, Miscommunication, Negotiations, Promises, Robbery, Roommates, Self-Medication, Squabbling, Swearing, Text Messages, Threats of Violence, Vouching for someone, accidental gunfire, imagining worst-case scenarios, offering dubious consent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-06
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-07-07 21:32:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15916662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PepperCat/pseuds/PepperCat
Summary: One gesture doesn't fix matters, and sometimes things can spiral.





	1. What's Past is Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As usual, please do tell me if there's trouble with the emoji or chat styling!

**Thea:** So how's it going with the guy whose name you won't tell me?

**Hartley:** Most of my college roommates were less annoying.

**Thea:** Most?

**Hartley:** All but one.

**Thea:** Glad to hear it.

**Thea:** What's he doing?

**Hartley:** Minor pettiness, mostly.

**Hartley:** Dirty dishes. Leaving things on my workbench or moving tools around. Loud noise at what would be ridiculous hours to anyone else. Glitter and a flashbang. Casual sniping.

**Thea:** ...what did *you* do?

**Hartley:** Cleared out the spare room and bought him a bed.

**Thea:** Hartley I have so many questions.

**Hartley:** You asked what I'd want someone to do in the situation, I thought that giving him his own space and offering to make it comfortable was a decent start.

**Thea:** And you ended up with a sulky teenager.

**Hartley:** Admittedly the way he's behaving *does* remind me a little of you when your mother started dating

**Thea:** They deserved it. You probably don't.

**Hartley:** It's kind of you to say so.

**Thea:** Seriously, *glitter*?

**Hartley:** I suppose that does stand out in context. Yes. Glitter, paint, and what I'm fairly certain was a homemade stun grenade. Very... low-yield? I suppose I can say low-yield. I'm really not that familiar with the terminology for weaponized explosive devices.

**Thea:** This isn't Central City slang for something? You really just mean teeny plastic flakes?

**Thea:** Stripper herpes?

**Thea:** (Party Popper emoji)?

**Hartley:** I do.

**Thea:** Hartley, how weird is this guy acting right now?

**Hartley:** Mhm. It's entirely normal for him to be annoying. I do think he's stepped it up a little recently.

**Thea:** Is he using the bed you bought him?

**Hartley:** It seemed rude to check.

**Thea:** I'm sorry, are you stifling your curiousity in order to not be rude?

**Hartley:** I'm stifling my curiousity because I think there is a non-zero chance that unexpectedly entering his room could result in defensive measures that might involve glitter, bleach, glue, or smoke bombs.

**Thea:** Like you couldn't figure out a way around it.

**Hartley:** I'm also stifling my curiousity in favour of respecting the privacy of someone who is not entirely *not* a guest.

**Thea:** How very you.

**Hartley:** I *have* been known to give up on things that I want out of principle, you know.

**Thea:** I'd noticed.

**Thea:** So what're you doing?.

**Hartley:** Waiting to see if he gets bored. I've dealt with worse.

**Hartley:** It comes and goes. I'm going to see if he wants to come on a grocery run.

**Thea:** Again: Central slang?

**Hartley:** No. I do need to eat, you know.

**Hartley:** Anyway, Cold's coming over--don't start--so I'd like to avoid my roommate having free run of the house, simply so that he doesn't get creative while I'm away.

**Hartley:** If he sets up something else in the living room I'm just going to have to disarm it in a hurry in the interests of preserving diplomacy.

**Thea:** Shh. I'm imagining your boss covered in glitter, glue, or bleach if he shows up before you're back from getting groceries.

**Hartley:** I'm imagining the aftermath.

**Thea:** Pragmatist. :P

**Hartley:** On occasion, I regret teaching you that word.

**Thea:** Luck with the glitterbitch.

**Hartley:** Appreciated but unnecessary. How much trouble is he likely to be able to cause on a quick shopping errand?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, how much trouble _is_ he likely to cause?


	2. In medias res

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hartley deals with underestimating Axel's propensity for annoyances.

The thought foremost in Hartley's mind, as the gun barrel dug into the side of his face, was that if he got shot in a Keystone liquor store (which was admittedly one he had started visiting for nearby convenience rather than for any real quality) when he'd told Thea he was only going out for groceries, she would judge the _hell_ out of him.

Also unless the bullet did one of those very considerate bounces that you heard about on the news sometimes, miraculously skidding along the bone and emerging with little more than soft tissue damage kind of thing, the most restrained and thoughtful person in her life would probably end up being Oliver Queen's bodyguard.

Right. That wasn't going to happen.

Second calculation, as Axel reached around him, grabbing up the bag on the counter, and then wrapped the arm that wasn't holding the gun around him and started pulling him back towards the door: given Axel's apparently genuine interest in securing Leonard Snart's help, Hartley's getting shot probably wasn't going to happen on _purpose_.

And going outside was probably a better option, all things told; it was getting dark, this part of Keystone wasn't exactly high-traffic, and the fewer people Axel was performing for the less of a spectacle he might make. He probably wouldn't get _more_ dramatic and intractable.

Probably.

...in retrospect, Hartley was rather regretting that he'd invited Axel to come out with him in public.

Going backwards wasn't that hard (was like needing to teach Thea how to dance years ago and letting her lead) but the gun to his head made it _very important_ to not slip or stumble, and a disproportionate amount of Hartley's attention was on not moving his head, not in the _slightest_ , in any way that might jostle the blocky pressure of the gun barrel. Behind him, Axel smelled unpleasantly sharp, breath and skin holding a metallic undertone that made Hartley think of adrenaline.

He just focussed on breathing and keeping moving, smooth and steady, and not setting anything off.

Aliane was glaring after them from behind the empty cash register, furious and unmoving, and Hartley tried for an apologetic smile before they were through the door and it was swinging shut and he'd lost sight of her, was working on staying smoothly standing when--between Axel's arm up around his shoulders and the gun and the relatively rapid pace--he couldn't really look down at his feet or slow down. Back around the side of the building, then, down the alley between the liquor store and the dust-glazed drycleaner's and pretty much clear of casual sight.

The gun dropped away from the side of his face and Hartley's skin prickled in sudden relief. He braced his feet for balance, yanked back against Axel's grip, and the other man stopped and turned. He was grinning, crescent of teeth in the alley dimness, and it split open into a laugh.

"Oh, Pipes," he said through the giggles, running the hand holding the gun back through his hair. "You should see the look on your face."

"A side-effect of some idiot _poin_ _t_ _ing_ _a gun at_ _it_."

Axel made a cooing, cloying noise that held no sympathy at all. "Awh, Pipe-squeak, you not used to actually going out and doing things?" His grin sharpened and he grabbed Hartley's shoulder and started pulling. "Is that why you don't know it's a bad idea to stick around right now? Get _moving_."

\--technically correct, although Hartley didn't have to like it. Besides, he was supposed to be keeping an eye on Axel; regardless of what had just happened, getting caught (if Aliane had called the police yet) would probably count as a failure in that regard.

"It's a bad idea," he said through his teeth, "to rob the neighbourhood where you live."

"I don't go there." Axel yanked him along the narrow space behind the drycleaner's, turned a corner and headed down towards the far side of the city block, Beukes Avenue; Hartley could see the sidewalk ahead, streetlight flicker and grimy brick.

"I do."

"And I pointed a gun at you, so you're welcome."

"I'm sorry, you think I should be _grateful_ for that?"

Axel shoved the gun into his waistband as they reached the sidewalk, tugged his jacket around and over. "I point the gun at her," he said, "you look bad for not doing anything. I point the gun at _you_ , she cleans out the cash register because she thinks brains in the till will make a huge fucking mess, and you don't look like you were in on it."

"I _wasn't_ in on it." Words coming out in a shaky hiss.

"And she could probably tell." Axel smirked back at him, eyes bright as broken glass, and Hartley remembered the disarranged tools on his workbench and the mess in the kitchen and the casual measuring gaze after every little barbed comment and gritted his teeth as they cut across the street. "You're a regular there or something, yeah? You can keep going back."

"Since I wasn't shot during your half-assed holdup, that is technically correct."

"Eh, it wasn't loaded."

Hartley bit back _guns are always loaded_. "I don't care."

Axel shot him another supercilious glance. "Really, Pipes? Even _you_ should know it makes a difference."

 _That was not what I meant._ But he didn't say that, either, because if he started trying to explain the difference between a personal boundary and a measure of intent to Axel Walker he was fairly certain he was going to start raising his voice and he didn't want to give the man the satisfaction.

"You shouldn't have assumed I wouldn't do anything if you pointed a gun at her."

"Guess I pointed the gun at the right person, then." Axel's grin widened, all edge. Hartley slowed again, and Axel pulled him forward and down between two scabby buildings as a car came along the road behind them. Hartley knew there were alleys in Keystone, he just didn't need to _use_ them quite this often. "Come on. You're lucky I didn't give you a chance to do something. You'd've gotten hurt." He giggled again, low and smug.

Hartley hissed air through his teeth and dropped that particular thread of conversation as they crossed the last street towards home and Axel pulled him unresisting up the steps. Much as his mind was turning towards threats, he guessed that actually expressing them would just beg for escalation, and he was less interested in that than in clearing up the matter before Len showed up. He settled on "Don't point a gun at me again."

Axel glanced over his shoulder, shaking his head, as Hartley closed the door behind them.

"Jesus," he said mildly, "you're really freaking out about this." He shrugged, pulling out the gun and aiming it casually towards Hartley. "Come on, hasn't anyone ever pointed a gun at you bef--"

" _Don't--_ " Hartley started forward, reaching out, and Axel lifted one hand to block him, pulled the other (with the gun) back and out of reach.

"Pipes, come on, it's not loaded. See?"

The crack of the gun going off hurt Hartley's ears badly enough that he couldn't quite take any satisfaction in the brief look of shock on Axel's face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops.


	3. Fracture Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Axel deals with underestimating... well, several things.

There's the noise that's really too sharp to be _bang_ , and the kick of the gun going off snaps hot through his wrist. Piper yelps something but Axel's busy cursing and switching the gun to his other hand, trying to shake the ache away, cause he wasn't holding the gun properly and that was a weird angle.

He gets some of the sting out and looks over. Pipes has gone _white_ , has both hands over his ears and is hiccupping breath fast and light like you do if you've just gotten your hand caught in a door or something, and he looks— well, like he would, mad and scared and shocked all at once.

Axel starts laughing. Because he wasn't expecting the gun to go off and because the look on Piper's face is pretty funny, seeing it full on instead of kind of from the side like in the liquor store, and there's a tight dropping feeling in his stomach because he's guessing he will finally, _finally_ get an honest reaction—

But instead Piper's breathing evens out and the look on his face goes back to almost nothing and he straightens up, hands down by his sides. "Fantastic," he says, voice dry and bitter as he looks at Axel.

"Whoops," Axel says, still laughing. "Something bugging you, Pipes?"

"You put a gun to my head."

"Awh, you really not had that happen before?" Axel makes a kind of swallowing snickering sound, waves it aside. "You're fine, Pipes. I didn't do anything but scare you."

"You didn't scare me."

Yeah, _right_. "I kinda scared you."

"You don't do that with a loaded gun." Piper's voice is starting to get a little raw around the edges. _Yes_. "You don't— why am I even talking to you, you're a _fucking child_ , I've known eight-year-olds with better—"

" _Piii_ per, you said you didn't _care_ that it was loaded, remember?"

"That means it being unloaded does not _alleviate_ the offense of it being pointed at me, you knuckleheaded—" Piper stops and takes a deep breath, and when he starts talking again _dammit_ his voice is steadier. "Give me the gun."

Axel puts both hands behind his back and raises his eyebrows, grinning.

Piper looks at him flat and distant and starts towards him. Axel dances back a step or two, not as far, giggling. "Pipes, guns freak you out, it just wouldn't be _responsible_ of me—"

"Give me—" Piper stops talking, and his lunge is actually pretty quick but he's telegraphing it. Axel swaps the gun to his free hand and holds it up out of reach, pushes Piper back. His arms are just long enough that he can keep the guy from getting a grip on him.

"You're really bad at this," he says cheerfully. "Come on, you wouldn't know what to do with it if you got it—"

"This a bad time?"

 _Whoops_ he didn't hear Cold come in. Was the guy supposed to be showing up?

Piper steps back, shaking Axel's fingers away from his face and dropping his hands. Axel straightens up and stops pointing the gun at the ceiling, 'cause even if he doesn't need to take Pipes seriously, Cold is a different grade of explosive.

Cold pushes the door shut behind himself and looks at Piper.

"He tried to shoot me," Piper says. He's sounding like he knows he's screwed up—which Axel takes to mean that he himself has not been especially out of line and Pipes knows he shouldn't have been bitching about it—but that's still not _right._

"Okay, that is, like, the _exact opposite_ of what happened—"

"Come again?" Len says calmly, but he's still watching Axel even if he's talking to Piper, and Piper sighs and pushes his glasses up, thumb and finger at the corner of his eyes like he's trying to hold the headache in.

"I was at Galioto's. He took me hostage," Piper says, "so that Aliane would give him the money from the cash register." Which, okay, but then he adds, "The gun actually being _fired_ appears to have been accidental, not to mention poorly aimed."

"I wasn't trying to hit him!" Axel protests, because it's not as if he was _trying_ and missed, that'd be— "I just forgot it was loaded." He gestures with the gun again and it sort-of ends up pointing towards Piper for a second and if he laughs at Piper's look you can't really blame him because _come on_.

Cold waves Piper back and moves away from the doorway, coming into the room. Axel grins, because maybe it was a _little_ less planned than Cold usually goes for but it worked out and if he can't get a reaction he at least doesn't mind getting something done. "See? It worked out okay. And you should've seen the look on h—"

The punch feels like getting hit in the face with a brick and he's staggering back, everything bright and kind of loopy. He thinks he's dropped the gun and his ears are ringing but he hears something, _just don't get it Walker_ , and he's yelling over it, "Fuck you I didn't _hurt_ him" when there's a noise like a buzzsaw cutting light and he's _freezing_ (no) skin turning to ice and tongue crackling with frost and (no) eyes burning cold in his head and everything's white—

" ** _Len!_** "

"—nonono" —whoever's saying it needs to step up and switch to something to get Cold to calm the hell down if he can just figure out what " _—don't shoot Rogues, I get it! I get it! Don't shoot your Rogues, okay!_ "

Nothing happens and everything's white and he can still hear that noise, _vreeem_ like a wasp raised on batteries. His skin's numb as if it's already come off in the cold and his eyes are aching like they're going to burst into slush, like beer bottles you forgot in the freezer.

But he's not dead, and he hiccups out a laugh.

He can't feel his hands, not really, but he tries pawing at his eyes and the window-frost white in his sight clears up enough that he can see Cold and Piper, all blurry, and a blue glare that's bright as magnesium even when he tries to look away.

He licks his lips and his tongue sticks for a second, like if you try to lick a metal pole in winter, but he can get the words out.

"Don't shoot Rogues, don't point guns at Rogues," he says again. He really did get it, he just didn't figure that Piper _counted_. Or that Cold'd get upset if you were just playing around. Man's got no sense of humour. "I won't. I won't I won't I won't." _Sincerely_.

Whatever's on his face is soft enough for him to blink it away, and he can see his own breath smoking white in the air, glowing in the light from the cold gun. Piper is standing right next to Cold, hand out like he grabbed the guy and _just_ let go of his arm, and if Axel makes it through the next two minutes he may actually care that he's missed something because no geek you just keep around for tech has the standing to lay hands on the boss, that's not how it _works_.

"Len," Piper says, no more fuss than if he's trying to get Cold's attention between hands of poker. "I think he gets it."

Cold looks at Piper and Axel would consider bailing except he still can't feel almost anything except how his head might split open from the cold and he _really_ wants to not do anything that Cold would catch from the corner of one eye and take as a reason to pull the trigger.

"Generally listen to you," Cold says, "but—"

" _I said I think he gets it!_ "

Axel can imagine Lisa talking to Cold that way. Maybe. But not doing it in _front_ of someone, that'd be like him interrupting Jesse, you _don't—_

He closes his eyes. It's quiet for a second, except for the cold gun's whine, and when Piper talks again most of the snap is out of his voice but not all. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood that _I_ was responsible for overseeing his behaviour."

"You're pushing it, Hart."

"I'm sure you'll let me know if I'm pushing too hard," light and dry, and Cold snorts at that.

"Doesn't seem worth it."

"It's hardly as if I haven't dealt with annoyances before," Piper says, and he sounds like he's thinking of a joke but not telling it because no-one else would laugh. Axel doesn't think there's anything funny about the situation. "I do think he'll be useful, and I'm sure you've made enough of an impression that he'll behave. Leave him here, I'll handle it."

There's a moment's pause.

"Sure."

"Quite sure."

The cold gun goes quiet and Axel's skin starts to sting through the numbness. His throat feels wet and runny and raw, like he's got a cold, and he's trying not to cough. He opens his eyes just a little, not moving. Cold's picking up the gun Axel dropped from the floor, acting like he doesn't need to worry at all about taking his eyes off Axel now, like everything's Piper's problem and there won't _be_ a problem.

He straightens up, glances at Axel like he's one of Piper's rats, and turns to Piper. "Get it sorted," he says. "Come by tomorrow."

"I'll be there."

"Don't bring him."

"I won't." Piper pushes up his glasses and Axel sees there are tiny lines of frost on the edge of the lenses, feathery little squiggles fading fast. It's summer, after all, wet and grey sometimes but still summer, and even inside it's warming up again. Slush is trickling down his neck and back and he shivers but doesn't move, just watches Cold leave.

Piper sees him to the front door, closes it behind him, and turns to look back at Axel.

"Well," he says, with that perfect poise that makes Axel want to tip him over just to see how he breaks. "That's my evening's schedule rearranged, thank you _so_ much."

 _Fuck you._ Axel doesn't say that, just glares. Piper sighs and steps forward, looking around the room. He picks up the bag with the take and Axel doesn't say anything.

Piper comes up to him, puts his fingers lightly on the side of Axel's jaw. They're hot by contrast. "Let me see..."

 _Fuck you you don't get to touch me—_ Axel bites that back too, seething, moves his head obediently until Piper takes his hand away and steps back.

"Get something warm on your skin," Piper says. "Run a dishtowel under warm water; nothing too hot. If you've got any other guns in the house, unload them. Put the bullets— back in their box, or find somewhere safe for them, or..." He stops like it's dawned on him that he doesn't have a fucking clue what he's talking about, and shakes his head.

"I'm going out to deal with Galioto's," he says. "I shouldn't be more than an hour." Like it'd take him anything like that fucking long, like Axel can't tell when he's being jerked around because he has to wait on someone else. "Could you handle dinner tonight?"

"Sure." Axel isn't smiling. He's almost doing it—he can feel the smile stuck in his own throat, all edges—but right now he can't quite— he doesn't—

He gets that he has to play nice and he doesn't think he can smile without showing how much he hates Piper for that and that'd be a bad thing to show right now so he locks it down.

That's all.

Piper looks for a second like he wants to add something and just shakes his head instead. Steps back, out of arm's reach, and says something low about being back in an hour, again, like he thinks Axel is too stupid to have caught it the first time. Axel just watches him go, glaring, and when the door's shut and there's no-one else in the house except the fucking rats hiding somewhere he turns and hits the wall hard enough that the melting slush leaks red over his knuckles, and that's when he starts to shake, just because of the cold.

Oh _fuck_ has he ever screwed up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (I am very tired, and am not sure this is exactly what I want it to be, but: the perfect is the enemy of the good, and I am not missing another month.)


	4. Mistrust blossoms.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the motivation for (and consequences of) a gesture are throughly misunderstood.

There was a police car pulling up desultorily in front of Galioto's, and the officers getting out looked about as invested as Hartley expected them to be in a no-injuries Keystone liquor store robbery. He walked past, went around the back of the store, and knocked on the back door. It was near full dark, and not a particularly hospitable alley (although far less stressful than the last time he'd been down it today), but it also felt like rusty needles were sliding through his eardrums and he really very much wanted to be able to keep the situation from worsening.

Aliane opened it after a moment. He could hear her father inside the shop proper, complaining about how quickly the police hadn't shown up. That was fine. Aliane herself looked red-eyed and rather shocked to see him.

"I really am sorry about earlier," he said. He held out the bag, and she took it by reflex. "That should be all of it. I'd appreciate it if you could leave my description out of it when you talk to the police?" Because he _really_ didn't need anything else to manage right now.

She glanced down at the bag. "What about the man who pulled you out of here?"

Hartley sighed. "His too." He thought she might have a sense of who he sometimes worked with (Keystone didn't exactly _gossip_ , but a lot of people seemed to have a remarkably good sense of who not to bother, a knack he could only hope Axel picked up sometime soon), and added "He's not exactly a regular, but I've had a word with him."

Aliane's eyebrows lifted, but she shrugged agreement. "He comes by again..."

"He shouldn't be any trouble if he does." Her father's opinions seemed to be winding down in the face of patient repetition, and Hartley hesitated. "I have noticed that you've got security cameras," he began delicately.

"They're broken," she assured him. Hartley wasn't entirely sure if she meant they were really broken, or if they were just going to conveniently be broken until after the police left, and decided the end result was the same.

"Thanks," he said, stepping back. Heard one of the police officers say something about _understand, but we need to talk to the damn witness_ and nodded past her. "They're about to call you, I think."

Aliane was about to answer when her father raised his voice and called her name loudly enough that it carried through the door. Hartley smiled politely and headed off.

He'd promised Axel an hour. It was far too soon to walk back unless he wanted to stand around on the front steps of the house, a course of action which seemed awkward at best, and there wasn't quite enough time to make it down to the Din and sit with a coffee before walking back.

But the bus stop a block over on Beukes had a slow schedule and a bench. He sat down, rubbing lightly at his ears. The sound of fingertips skating over skin wasn't much, but it was a hushing white noise that at least kept the rusty raw pain in his ears from growing any worse.

At least the cold gun had been quiet. At least the cold gun—

He pushed his glasses up and pinched the corners of his own eyes. It occurred to him that it was the same gesture that helped with an ice-cream headache, when you had one. He tried to imagine what Thea would say about that, something funny or sharp, or maybe Shawna...

_—don't shoot Rogues, I get it! I get it!_

Hartley wouldn't call what Axel had done screaming—the word was too laden with value judgement—but his voice had been very emphatic, and yes, certainly frightened. _Fr_ _ightened_ was a reasonable response at that particular juncture. Hartley's heart had been somewhere in his mouth and he hadn't even been a target.

But he'd seen Axel shrug off violence before. Hartley himself had given the man a concussion and needed to be pulled off by Mick, and aside from not bothering the rats again, Axel acted as if he hadn't even _noticed_. And presumably anyone who made an effort to project such deep indifference would appreciate a little privacy to compose himself. The least Hartley could do to help smooth things over was grant him that courtesy.

Not to mention that he could use a little time himself. He'd had his schedule rearranged at the last minute, he'd argued with Leonard Snart, he'd seen his stupidly annoying roommate nearly frozen to death in front of him, and he'd nearly gotten _shot_. He felt he was entitled to take a little time to try and calm down.

Bad enough that he'd already lost his temper.

Someday he'd stop balking his bosses for the sake of people who couldn't care less about him.

(He wouldn't. He really wouldn't. Even though the cold gun had been Ramon's fault and not his own, there was a limit to what you could write off as being outside your purview.)

At least he hadn't gotten let go this time.

Hartley sat there for a while, rubbing at his ears and trying to think of anything particularly brilliant that he could bring to the table before tomorrow night. Nothing much came to mind, but the feeling that his eardrums were getting sliced into tatters was fading, and it was getting easier to concentrate. Perhaps he'd do better by late evening, or in the morning if he actually got some sleep.

He checked the time and headed home.

* * *

He came back barely a minute ahead of the hour he'd promised, and spent it standing on the sidewalk, breathing slowly and running over details a final time. The robbery was unlikely to get much in the way of follow-up, Aliane was fine, Axel hadn't been killed for being an ungovernable loose cannon, and hopefully Hartley could call the situation stable and spend a few hours trying to improve the plan for the alarm bypass before tomorrow night.

Everything should be fine.

He went inside and studiously avoided calling out, hanging up his coat and glancing around the room. A section of the wall and floor were damp, but only inasmuch as was reasonable if someone had recently finished mopping up meltwater.

That was probably a good sign. He went to the bookshelf, running his finger over the spines. Mims, maybe; Mims was usually a good start when he was trying to come up with something, and a reread felt like less effort than starting on a journal article right now.

He sat down on the couch with his book. Axel was in the kitchen, moving around, and the crockery growl and clash of plate against plate made Hartley wince for a moment. There was a smell of basil and tomatoes and cheese in the air. Hartley wasn't especially a fan of pizza, but he supposed that it counted as a good faith effort and really, he hadn't given Axel any parameters.

Axel came out with a couple of plates. He looked less ragged than earlier, hair neatly in place, and he'd either dried his clothes or changed them. Hartley tried to remember what the man had been wearing earlier and couldn't. Something eyecatching, that hadn't changed.

He held out one of the plates, a couple of slices on it, but didn't let go when Hartley reached for it. "Good enough?"

He didn't sound sulky, at least.

"It's fine," Hartley said, and Axel let go. Hartley set the plate down on the coffee table and looked back at his book. He felt the subtle shift of weight as Axel sat down on the other end of the couch, heard springs whining softly and the crackling crush of old cushions and fabric. Maybe he should look at getting new furniture. The current couch had been old when he moved in, never mind since Axel had, and since then they'd—

He closed his eyes for a second, shook his head, and refocused on the page in front of him. Dual-purpose emitters and detectors, basic details.

"So what are you seeing the Ice Dad about tomorrow, Pipes?"

Hartley marked his spot with a finger and glanced up. "Just work."

"Sure I can't come?"

Hartley was _not_ getting into a conversation that involved Axel Walker trying to undermine any of Leonard Snart's decisions. He looked back at the page. "Quite sure."

"So what'm I supposed to do?"

"I'm sure you'll find a way to make yourself useful at some point," he said dryly. Had that been too harsh? The tone, maybe not, but the words—

There was a considering noise from Axel. "How's that?"

Really, any other day Hartley would have been _so_ pleased to find Axel trying to have a serious discussion about how to contribute, but right now it was just another new problem to deal with and he'd had enough of that. He kept looking at his book.

"I'm sure you'll figure it out. You've got your qualities." He tried to make his voice milder. He wasn't sure he'd managed, and at any rate he was probably overthinking it. Axel didn't really seem to pay much attention to his opinions—

Hartley felt and heard the shift of weight again, glanced up and pulled sharply back as Axel twisted up onto the couch and leaned forward, one hand on the back of the couch and one on its arm beside Hartley. He stopped close enough that Hartley could feel the warmth of his breath, sweet and a little heavy. He was smiling and the smile was a good one, there was no meanness to it at all, it was a playful welcoming grin and if Hartley hadn't spent the last several days with Axel flipping between neutral and annoying he could really have _believed_ it—

The last time he'd seen a smile that mellow on Axel's face, the man had been lying to a sales clerk. Because Hartley had been buying him a bed. On a day that had included, he remembered, the words _fuck you_ _,_ _you don't get to touch me_.

Axel's smile was very good. His eyes, on the other hand, were bright as broken glass, wet and edged with red, and maybe that was just the aftereffects of the frost—it would be lovely if it was just that and nothing else—but close as he was, he was looking right through Hartley, unfocused and blank.

Hartley took a deep breath. He thought the smell on Axel's breath was rum and coke, and he remembered drinking it with that horribly trashy movie playing, and Axel leaning in and that time he hadn't stopped so close, hadn't stopped at all, wet mouth and warm hands and the good live weight of him, pressing Hartley down into the cushions; one hand stroking and squeezing and the other over Hartley's mouth and Hartley had been hanging on, hands on Axel's arms and that was such a stupid thing to wish he remembered better, the feel of Axel's skin under his own fingers and his head was hurting and it would be lovely if his day actually got better at this point and and and—

Axel tilted his head to one side and made a questioning little noise. Hartley crossed his arms, holding himself in and keeping the book between the two of them although he couldn't have said who he was shielding, and didn't do anything he wanted to do.

"I realize you're not overly fond of the concept of personal space," he said, "but you're in mine right now, Axel. I was reading. Do you mind?"

"I _don't_ mind," Axel said, still with that perfect untrustworthy smile. "Whatcha gonna do about it?"

Red-rimmed eyes, narrowed at the corners and staring into space. Hartley wanted to look away and didn't, Axel's arms braced around him in his peripheral vision, and really, would it _kill_ the man to wear a shirt that didn't have the sleeves ripped off?

"Back off," he said, softly because his mouth was dry and he was afraid his voice would shake and he didn't _want_ to say what he was saying. He thought Axel had actually been the last man to touch him, the only one to do that in longer than he liked to think, and even that might not have weighed on his mind so much if he hadn't noticed how demonstrative Axel was with everyone else. He didn't touch Len and the most he did with Mardon was 'accidentally' bump into him but the rest—

Axel'd lean into and hug _Roy_ , for the love. Not because it meant anything, Axel paid so little attention to Roy most times Hartley wasn't entirely sure he knew Roy's _name_ , but just because he liked to touch people, was comfortable with it, came to it so easily...

Axel made a low whining noise in his throat, a kind of sulky purr that went right down Hartley's spine, and Hartley's fingers tightened on the book. "Really, Pipes?"

"I'm perfectly happy to respect your restrictions about contact," Hartley said flatly, and Axel blinked and actually looked at him for a second, and Hartley didn't understand the flash of anger he saw but kept right on talking, "but you do not get to trap me on the furniture, Axel. Back off or I will move you."

Giving Axel a warning was probably a tactically unsound idea that reduced the odds of winning any fight that was going to happen. But the alternative was trying to shove him away _without_ warning him, and Hartley thought that as tense as the situation seemed to be right now, it wouldn't be improved if Axel got startled.

Axel eeled back until he was sitting on one heel, managed to somehow make it look graceful, which even now seemed ridiculously unfair.

"So what do you want, Pipes?" His voice was cheerful enough but flat, and he was looking right through Hartley again, focussing on something else entirely.

"Not this," Hartley said levelly. He'd have appreciated a little gratitude, but maybe just a case of Axel grudgingly being less of a brat, not— not—

Not offering something he clearly had no interest in giving freely.

Axel's smile sharpened for a knife-flick second, went back to mild. "Sure, I get it." His voice was light and friendly; Hartley couldn't hear edges in it, only the man's heart racing underneath the deceptive ease. "You argue with Cold out of the goodness of your heart when you don't even _like_ me, right?"

"If it makes you feel better," Hartley said thinly, "just think of it as my wanting to stick you with handling dinner tonight," and Axel's eyes widened a little. He made a funny sound, half bark and half sneeze; it took Hartley a moment to realize that that was apparently what a Trickster sounded like when he was trying to bite a laugh back instead of give voice to it.

He realized that Axel hadn't laughed once all conversation.

"You're cracked, Piper." Still that easy-going voice, warm as if it was an old joke between friends.

"Possibly," Hartley said, "but I've had a long day and would really like to focus on my reading right now, and you're a very effective distraction." _Dammit_ he could have phrased that better. "This is neither the time nor the circumstance under which I particularly want your company, thank you for dinner, it's been a long day, _good night_."

Axel stared through him for a minute, then got up and stalked down the hall. Hartley heard the door to his room shut, not slam, and then none of the motion or music he might otherwise have expected.

He sat there, holding the book with white-knuckled fingers, until Coffee came nosing along the side of the couch and put her paws up on the coffee table so that she could get a better sniff of the congealing pizza.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Each chapter grows longer than the previous one. I am concerned.
> 
> Hartley, I honestly do believe, means well and tries to behave correctly when he's not holding a grudge. That said, I have a lot of opinions about Axel's background, and very few of them are "and so he was taught that sometimes people in a position of power would just be kind for no reason and he wouldn't have to try and figure out what their angle was".
> 
> Title is from a Sophocles quote; "Trust dies but mistrust blossoms." Didn't think the whole thing suited because I don't think there was exactly a particularly deep level of trust there in the first place.


	5. Apprehension

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of things spiralling. (But there is, at least, a less-fraught tangent.)

Axel waits in his room. Closes the door and puts his back to it and slides down, sitting, and honestly he wants to just crawl into (or under) his bed and curl up but he doesn't want to be there if anyone comes in. After a while he puts his hands to his face and thinks of cold still coming off his skin, like standing in front of a freezer in summer. Presses his fingers to his closed eyes and imagines all the blurs of colour in blue instead of red and yellow.

He's laughing. He can't stop laughing, but he tries to keep it quiet, and mostly manages, and his throat's aching anyway so it trails off into hiccups. His head feels stuffed and heavy—not the cold, just a whole lot of things trying to break through the dull alcohol haze, and he ignores them all. Piper called off Cold and nothing's happened yet it's just _time_ and _circumstance_ and he'll deal when it comes up he's dealt with worse it's fine it's _fine_ but how the _fuck_ was he that off-base and what else has he missed?

He thought he got it. Didn't really stop to think about _how_ he got it, he doesn't usually _need_ to, and now his head hurts and he's trying to scramble through everything to make sure he doesn't fuck anything _else_ up—

That stupid crack about handling dinner.

...shit, was that a cue? Piper's dishes? He scrambles to his feet, opens his door and goes down the hall as quietly as he can. Living room's empty and dark but he can see the plates aren't there anymore.

There's nothing left out in the kitchen; nothing left to do. Inside the cupboard the plates are clean and dry.

He doesn't know what to do, but Piper might have heard him, and he gets a glass down from the shelf and runs a drink of water from the sink just to make the right sounds, like he had an excuse to be in the kitchen, and retreats to his room again.

Nothing's good. Piper was so mad Axel was starting to get an honest reaction out of him and then he _still_ interrupted when Cold got pissed, did that weird still calm thing and then snapped at Cold like it wasn't anything more than talking to Roy.

Forget why Piper gets to do that. Just for a minute. The point is he shut down _Cold_ , that doesn't happen period and that doesn't happen when someone doesn't _like_ you and when it does happen it is not. The kind of thing. That gets cancelled out. By ordering. A fucking. Pizza.

Axel liked being here. Not the bit where Piper kept locking down behind that weird glass poise, where he'd say one thing and do another, but the rest of it. Mostly. It didn't get too quiet and he had his own room and Piper was kind of interesting. Not as nice as he acted but that just meant either he wasn't a problem or else it was no big deal and kind of fun poking at him to see how far he'd take it.

But if Piper can stop Cold, he could've kicked Axel back to the safehouse already. And he didn't. He just let Axel stick around, and dig, and dig, and it didn't _work_ , not really, but Axel bets that now Piper, even with his hangup of acting like someone who cares when he doesn't really, has got an _excuse_.

That's the kind of thing Piper'd be patient enough to angle for, maybe. Everyone knows you don't need to be nice to people who make you miserable. Definitely not if they make you miserable and they owe you.

 _I've got a bad feeling about this_ , echo from a dozen bad horror movies, and Axel giggles again and huddles down with his back to the door, waiting for a knock or a kick or...

He wakes up with a crick in his neck and a splitting headache when the sun comes in in the morning, stiff as hell and cold besides.

* * *

It's amazing how well you can avoid someone while you're living in the same house as them. Axel keeps expecting to come into the kitchen or out of the bathroom to find Piper standing there like a jump cut in a horror movie, and it keeps not happening. He's trying a little—waiting until he hears Piper start playing music or go downstairs into the basement before he comes out—but he knows that if Piper wanted to talk to him he could, he's not trying that hard and anyway outside the basement there's four rooms plus one bathroom and one front door, sooner or later you expect to run into someone just out of bad luck.

It's the third night since Piper shut down Cold, two days and change, and Axel's sitting in his room with his back against the door again, working slowly through a drink and wondering if it's worth it to move back into the safehouse just to see if that'd get Piper to _say_ something (and what it'd get him to say, and whether or not he really wants to risk spending that much time around Cold, who he guesses is a lot more likely to show up at the safehouse than here, and if he shows up here at least Axel has his own room to lie low in because it's not like Cold is gonna come _looking_ for him if he keeps his head down, plus he's started to wonder if Cold told _Lisa_ ), when he hears Piper coming out of his room. Freezes and listens, but all he hears through the door is Piper going down the hallway, and then a little pause, and then the sound of the front door closing.

He thinks of snooping through Piper's room, but he did that already before everything got weird and if he does find anything different and starts acting on it then Piper'll _know_ he went in there and maybe he'll be pissed or maybe it'll mean he'll feel like it's okay to come into Axel's room and—

He crawls out the window, cuts around the house and over the lawn to the sidewalk and sees which way Pipes is heading. The guy doesn't look back to see him, just keeps strolling.

Axel waits to see which way he turns at the end of the block and then follows.

It's late enough no-one's really out—he looks at his phone and it's past two in the morning—and while their house has that godawful sodium-orange lighting across the street, it's not a really well-lit part of town, even when Piper moves away from the residential streets and crosses towards where the dark buildings are more scabby businesses and apartments and less tired houses. He can see where Piper's heading well enough, follow him from a block or two back and not be scared of losing him. The sky's overcast, and there's a light wind blowing the occasional piece of trash across the streets; Axel's pretty sure he's not easy to see or hear.

Piper does glance back once, but it's more of a looking around than looking back, and Axel just keeps his head down and keeps walking. It's starting to spit rain, cold thin drops, and it's still oh-dark-thirty in the morning, so keeping his head down isn't unreasonable or stand-out-ish or anything. When he looks back up, Pipes is still going, has pulled ahead a little.

He wishes it was earlier. If it was earlier (if it was someone who wasn't Piper) the guy might be going out for a drink and Axel could at least talk to him in something kind of close to public, and even if that isn't really safer it _feels_ like it could be because he thinks Piper pretends more in public. But even if you can get a drink after hours in Keystone (you definitely can), Axel doesn't think Piper tends to go to those places.

(Unless maybe it's a work thing? And interrupting a work thing would not be great, but he wouldn't mind hanging out and eavesdropping, if he could, because he really has no idea what's going on—)

He's heading for the Din. Axel is not surprised.

It would be very hard to hang out and eavesdrop in a nearly-empty diner. Axel hangs back, shoves his hands in his pockets and slows down as Piper goes in. The wind's died down a little, but the rain is picking up.

He can see Piper sitting in one of the booths up against the front window. The storefronts on this block aren't exactly equipped with deep doorways, but he stands in one of them to get a little bit out of the rain anyway and tries to figure out what to do next.

He can go in and try to talk to the guy, which will maybe work if he isn't expecting someone, or he can hang around and see if anyone comes to meet him. Because if Cold _did_ yank him out here for something in the middle of the night, Axel does not want to be around annoying Piper when Cold shows up. And Piper seems like the kind of guy who might be early.

Axel pulls out his phone to check the time, shivering a bit in the rain. He figures he'll wait until half-past, that at least seems like a reasonable time for someone to set a meeting and if no-one's there by five past _that_ he's probably not interrupting.

He puts his phone back and tries to figure out what the hell he's going to say, if no-one else shows up. What he really wants to know is _what the fuck are you playing at_ and he's got enough sense to figure out that politer will go over better, but he hasn't exactly slept great lately and he can't quite figure out how to reword that into something fancy.

In the window, someone brings Piper coffee. The guy's looking out at the street, but Axel doesn't figure he's noticing anything. The rain's running down the windows, and Axel's just a shape in a doorway getting steadily wetter, which is admittedly annoying...

"Fuck you, Sparky," he says softly. Which is just venting. It's _probably_ not Sparky's fault.

He sees Piper put down the coffee, and put his face in his hands, pushing up his glasses. He's starting to guess the guy isn't meeting someone—Axel would at least not sit in full view of the street if he was going to do that, but Piper really _still_ comes across as green—but he wants to give it a little longer before he goes in because he still hasn't figured out what the hell to say.

Piper pulls out his own phone.

Axel's buzzes.

He pulls it out again, sees the notification on the screen.

**Piper:** Come in?

That jump-scare feeling, finally. He's been waiting for it for three days. Now that it's here it's not as bad as he thought. He looks up and Piper's looking towards him, through the window. Axel would have sworn the man couldn't see him, but...

Fine. He was going to do this anyway. He puts his phone back in his pocket and crosses the street, goes inside.

* * *

The Din is warm. He hadn't really noticed that the outside wasn't; it crept up on him a bit at a time. Like boiling a frog, or freezing to death. His shirt is not quite soaked enough to be dripping from the rain.

He makes his way to the booth where Piper's sitting, sits down, crosses his arms and doesn't say anything. It is not the best way to start but he's jittering-anxious and now that the conversation's here he doesn't _want_ it and it's the best he can do.

Piper's just looking at him. "Sorry," he says after a moment. "I thought— there's no point in getting soaked. You don't need to talk to me, if you'd rather not. But if the rain doesn't let up we could split a ride home?"

It is so completely not what Axel expects that for a second he sees himself belting the guy. Piper's angry, _has_ to be angry, and he is getting a little sick of this just-here-for-the-good-of-all _bullshit_ that the guy is pulling, he swears he will take the consequences if he can just get a single fucking honest reaction—

Piper's picking up his coffee, and glancing out the window again. There aren't circles under his eyes, exactly, but there are shadows, and he's moving slow and tired. It'd be like punching a poster, or a mannequin.

Axel takes a deep breath and picks the first thing that comes to mind that isn't about the fight he's apparently going to need to pick to get answers.

"How'd you know?" he says. "You tag my phone for Cold, or something?"

"I heard you."

Axel snorts. He's maybe not an urban ninja, but he's not buying _that_ one. "Seriously."

"Perfectly serious," Piper says. "I know you were wearing different shoes, and it's a little harder to pick out footstep patterns on grass, so I wasn't _sure_ it was you at first but I didn't really think you'd have come out of your window and then just stood there while someone _else_ followed me. The sidewalks weren't definitive, but it didn't sound like someone who clearly wasn't you. And then I obviously heard you in the doorway..."

Axel's staring. He's sure it's a bad joke, something where the point is just to see how long you can keep saying something stupid, except he's also sure Piper has no sense of humour so it can't be that.

For his part, Piper looks like something's just dawning on him.

"...has no-one _told_ you this?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **_Please note:_** when this was first posted, the text after the final scene break was missing. Took me about an hour to catch that.
> 
> I clipped out a very short scene I had since I felt it interfered with the tone. It happens at the first text break, and if you would like to read it for reference or completion or consideration, it is at the end of the Tumblr post [here](https://peppersandcats.tumblr.com/post/181321035984/may-the-bridges-i-burn-light-the-way-ch-5).


	6. It's up to brave hearts, sir.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A resolution, of a kind.

"Told me _what_." It was flat and angry, and Axel was still staring across the table at him. Hartley mentally ran through what he'd said to Axel, what he'd heard anyone _else_ say to Axel, and yes, there'd been some puns from Cold and Lisa about him keeping his ears open, but beyond that Roy and Mick weren't exactly talkative in general and he was pretty sure Shawna and Mark hadn't mentioned it and Hartley _himself_ hadn't specifically said anything...

And of everything the two of them _could_ be discussing at the moment, it was a remarkably safe topic.

"Oh," he said. "I'm sorry— it's been a while since I had to explain this." He glanced up. Marisse was coming over with another cup of coffee and the carafe, mouth slightly set in the way that meant she was getting ready to worry about a customer turning something into a situation. Axel had been to the Din before, and generally wasn't a problem, but it wasn't hard to see he was getting ready to be angry.

" _Tout va bien?_ " Marisse said cheerfully enough to Hartley, setting down the coffee in front of Axel.

" _Oui, merci._ "

Axel reached for the sugar dispenser and started pouring it into his coffee, eyes flicking between the two of them. Marisse looked at him and he tacked on a smile that meant _go away_. Politely enough—Axel usually met a bare minimum of courtesy to the Din staff—but very clearly.

" _Si tu est sur._ " Marisse was still looking— proactive, Hartley decided. Nothing so dramatic as protective, but Axel was clearly getting the _will you be a problem customer_ evaluation.

" _Ça va,_ " Hartley said. " _Nous sommes tout simplement fatigués._ "

" _Bien d'accord._ " Marisse smiled calmly at Axel. "You want a menu?"

"I'm good, thanks." Flat and tired as you might expect edging on towards three o'clock in the morning; not remarkable at all if you hadn't learned to expect a little more energy from Axel Walker.

Marisse moved off. Axel glanced after her, frowning a little, then back to Hartley. Didn't say anything, raised his eyebrows.

"Right," Hartley said. He was trying to think of what to say, and when he paused to do that, a whole lot of things came clear. The rain hitting the window and sliding down was (mercifully) drowning some of it out, but he could hear Marisse moving behind the counter and the grind and flip of pages as she went back to her book, her breathing, and Axel's shallow breathing and quick heartbeat, the slip of fingers on coffee cups, even a low silvery hush that he was pretty sure was the sugar dissolving...

It was nearly three in the morning. He'd come out here to get _away_ from Axel for a bit. He was not, he felt, equipped to deal with this right now.

Nonetheless.

"You know I'm a little smarter than most people?" he started gracelessly. It might not be the most diplomatic approach, but it was true.

"Sure," Axel said. "Maybe more than a little."

"Yes. Well, if I'm a little smarter than most people, then my hearing is a lot better. Not as far beyond the average as the Flash's speed, but certainly well past the range of what you'd expect."

Axel looked at him for a moment. It was, in Hartley's experience, longer than the man usually took to come up with a rejoinder.

That said, he usually looked like he'd managed to sleep in the last day and a half, so perhaps a little slowness wasn't that remarkable.

"You're a freak?" There was no malice in it that Hartley could hear, and he nodded. "From the big bang at Star Labs?" He nodded again, and Axel paused for a moment.

"That's _it_?" he said. "Sparky's a weather station, Boo can _explode_ and put the pieces back together, the fucking Flash can—" Axel took one of his hands off the coffee cup and flicked it irritably, dismissing the subject. "And you can _hear_ things?"

"I can hear a lot of things," Hartley said. "And yes, that's it."

"That kind of sucks," Axel said. Hartley nodded. "So speaking as your roommate, exactly how much is a lot?" Hartley frowned in confusion, and realized Axel was showing his teeth a little, a dry little papercut of a smirk, and rolled his eyes.

"I've found that when living with others it's best to apply selective hearing."

" _I_ always learned you could hear the best stuff by eavesdropping."

"Clearly we learn different things."

"Clearly," Axel echoed, as his smirk widened. He let go of the coffee, sat back and spread his arms along the back of the booth. Hartley could hear the anger lilting through his voice and glanced towards their reflections in the window. "You sure you haven't learned you like overhearing anything, Pipes?"

"You know, it's a lot less effective when I can tell you're trying to fluster me," he said. His tone was dry; so was his mouth. He'd wanted to get out and try to think about this rationally, dammit, and Axel in a still-clinging rain-wet shirt lounging across the table from him wasn't helping. "—and before you try anything _else_ to fluster me, remember that I'm holding a hot cup of coffee and that when it's three in the morning I suffer from an exaggerated startle reflex."

He heard Axel laugh. "Also you're petty as fuck."

"That's always a good thing to keep in mind, yes." Alright, poise reattained. He sipped his coffee. "Why were you following me?"

Axel started a shrug, and stopped halfway, and sighed. "What do you want." His delivery was so flat it took Hartley a minute to realize that he'd finished talking.

What he really wanted was the dynamic from earlier, after Axel had started to settle in but before that awful mistake on the couch. But he thought of the shiver in Axel's voice at _I want a fucking_ _ **door**_ and couldn't see going back to that. He couldn't very well give a— an almost-houseguest his own room and then demand he not _use_ it.

And the room wasn't the real problem. The room was when Axel had started picking at him, and Hartley still thought he could cope with that, but after Len—

"I wish you'd stop avoiding me," he said. That wasn't all of it—he'd prefer neutral avoidance to what he'd come back to after returning the money to Galioto's—but it was a start. "You've been acting like I'm going to hit you."

Axel made a low crooning noise. "That what you're into, Pipes?"

Hartley murdered _every_ fragment of expression that might have crossed his face and turned back to Axel. "Since we've managed some _spectacular_ miscommunication in the past: The only reason you care about what I want is because of what happened with Cold, correct?"

Axel shrugged and didn't say anything.

"Axel?"

"Sure." Low and bitter, as if he resented even answering. His smirk had vanished, and he wasn't quite glaring, but it was close.

"I'm just asking," Hartley said. He hadn't had anyone look at him that way in a while, and he didn't particularly care for it.

"I asked first. What do you _want_?"

"Keep your voice down, please," Hartley said, glancing towards Marisse. She was still reading, but he was quite sure she was picking up on at least some of the argument. "I already told you—"

" _Fuck_ that." Hartley flinched as Axel put his coffee down, the cup stutter-clicking on the table. The other man's voice was low enough, but hissing with venom. "Don't say you _stopp_ _ed_ _him_ and the only thing you want is me acting like it didn't happen, that's not how this works, I'm not stupid, I've _seen_ how you look at him and how you listen, he _matters_ and you stopped him, what do you get out of this, I can do it, I'm not trying to jerk you around but _what do you_ _want?_ "

Hartley folded his hands together on the table, realized he was mirroring Axel; coffee set down, leaning forward. Axel's eyes were reddened, and there were shadows underneath them, his pupils were adrenaline-wide and dark. This close, Hartley could smell something sweet in his breath, sugar from the coffee or from something he'd been drinking earlier.

Axel's conflation of _not avoiding me_ with _acting like it didn't happen_ bothered him, but Hartley thought that was a secondary problem compared to the blind assurance of _I can do it_ when he'd been trying very hard to make it clear that there was nothing to do. Apparently he wasn't getting through.

"I didn't do it to get anything out of you," he tried.

"Sure," Axel said. "Sure, Piper, you don't even _like_ me but you pissed off the Ice Dad for me. Out of the goodness of your fucking heart, right? People aren't like that, people like _you_ aren't like that, you say all the right things until you've got an excuse not to follow through and you got one, you know I need to stick around, so just get to the fucking _point._ "

Hartley opened his mouth and shut it again. He was trying to have a conversation with his supremely annoying roommate who he _obviously_ didn't want to see killed. That was an outcome one might vent hyperbolically about, certainly, but avoid in actuality because one's roommate was a _person_.

Axel was apparently having a conversation with someone who was the only reason his brains hadn't been turned to ice cream inside a frosty bone shell and who wanted compensation for that, and Hartley didn't know how to dissuade him from that perception.

"It's not like that," he said thinly, and mostly what he meant was _I'm not like that_ and he wanted it to be true very badly and suddenly doubted that it was. "Axel, I don't— I told you I didn't want anything." It sounded a little strangled, because he had almost said _anyth_ _ing like that_ and he didn't even want to go _that_ far in out-loud acknowledgment of what he thought Axel might offer.

"You said it wasn't the _time nor the circum_ _stance_." The mimicry was viciously accurate. "When is?"

"Axel, really, it's not _like_ that, I—"

He heard Axel's heartbeat spike and realized he was reaching across the table. Pure reflex, and he stopped and put his hand to his face, pushed his glasses up and pinched the bridge of his nose. Remembered Axel telling him _fuck you, you don't get to touch me_ and he'd stuck by that, he'd made a point of it once he'd gotten back and—

It occurred to him, then, where part of Axel's conviction about the mismatch between what he said and what he did might have come from. Not all of it, certainly, but a part.

"I'm sorry," he said.

Axel blinked.

"I do try to respect your restrictions about contact," he said. "After Len— Cold— the gun—" Hartley picked up his coffee again, the warm ceramic pushing away the memory of Axel's chilled face under his fingertips. "I wasn't thinking of it as touching you, just trying to make sure there wasn't going to be a problem—" He saw Axel's eyes narrow. "—from the _frostbite_ , Axel. I apologize. It was a tense situation and I overstepped."

Axel was quiet for a moment. "Sure," he said eventually. "You nearly got shot, right? Makes it okay."

"That is not what I meant," Hartley said. "It was an explanation, not an excuse. And why _did_ you do it?" Which was a tangent, he felt, but he was getting tired of repeating himself. "You've been a brat since you got your own room." He could actually think of several words that were a better fit than _brat_ , but he was trying to keep the conversation both civil and in English. "The gun was just the latest. Was there something about giving you your own room that translated to _please annoy me_ for you?"

Axel hooked the handle of his coffee cup with one finger and began turning it in a circle. The cup rattled a little on the table and coffee spilled out, began trailing the cup as it moved across the table. "Just wanted to see how long you'd keep acting like you were nice."

"I'm _not_ nice," Hartley said. "As we've established, I'm petty and uptight and, apparently, confusing to deal with."

"So don't blame me for trying to figure it out."

"There's nothing to figure out." Dear _god_ , even Thea was never this annoying to deal with. "Were you _trying_ to pick a fight?"

There was a crooked smile on the corner of Axel's mouth. "Sure."

He hadn't expected that. "Why?"

"Just to get it over with." Axel showed his teeth, and Hartley supposed it was technically a smile, even if it was on the opposite end of the spectrum from friendly. "You're a shit, Piper—you're mean and you use people and you let them know it and _you don't fucking like me_." As if that was a personal insult. "So I got bored of waiting for you to quit faking it. And now you don't have to, don't you fucking _get_ it?"

Hartley didn't say anything, straightened up and pulled his shoulders back. He could feel his mouth drawing down at the corners, trembling a little, and he breathed slow and steady until he felt it stop.

"Let me recap," he said, steadying his voice and ticking off the points on his fingers. "You believe that you owe me a substantial personal favour which I will certainly collect. You can't allow yourself to hurt me, given the consequences which would surely follow. You don't trust me to behave decently towards you, and in fact believe that all my attempts to do so have been nothing but a face-saving deception. And now that you owe me, you'd like to eliminate said deception by irritating me until I lash out at you, just to resolve the apprehension. Did I miss anything?"

Axel was still showing his teeth. "Guess you actually _are_ smart."

"I take it that anything I might do to try and prove good intent would be taken as a sign of trying to continue the deception?" Like giving him space to compose himself when he'd nearly been killed. Like not pushing him into a conversation when he didn't want one.

Axel snorted in a way that Hartley parsed as _obviously_. It made a miserable kind of sense; once Axel had started operating from that premise, everything seemed to fall in line with it.

"Alright," he said after a moment, "if you can't hurt me _and_ you owe me, why would I bother to deceive you? You've already made it clear that I can't persuade you as to my intent. Why wouldn't I just collect?"

"You don't want to think you're an asshole," Axel said promptly. "I mean, you _are_ , but you hate hearing it." He grinned again, and Hartley guessed he'd flinched at Axel's words or something.

"Right, but you think it's _you_ I'm trying to deceive," Hartley said dryly. "Alright. Do you want to move out?"

He couldn't quite make sense of the look that crossed Axel's face before the smile resurfaced, all edges and teeth. "You want me gone, Pipes? 'm not leaving town. I've got stuff to do here. And it's your job to keep me on a leash for Cold, right?"

"I'm not talking about leaving, just living somewhere else." Hartley said it calmly. He couldn't manage gentle, but he could do calm. "And I know Cold would rather I keep an eye on you, but he knows you need the Rogues. He might be convinced that was enough to ensure your restraint—"

"Do you _want_ me _gone_." Axel's heartrate was spiking again, Hartley could hear it, and his hands were making the cup chatter against the table. Just a very little, a shivering sound like one of his rats bruxing.

Hartley sighed. "I would like to stop upsetting you," he said. Axel laughed, shaking his head. It was a strained, spasmodic giggle. "Would you feel better if I promised not to call in the favour you owe me? If I don't want to think of myself as an asshole, if I'm so uptight and formal, I'd be less likely to break a promise, wouldn't I?"

"You're going to pinkie-swear, Piper?" Axel was laughing again, a bitter sound. "Cross your heart and hope to die, swear on your family name like they give a shit, draw up a contract, put your hand on a fucking stack of— sheet music or CDs or whatever the f—"

"I swear on my rats."

Axel stopped laughing.

Hartley felt his chest loosen a little in the quiet. The relative quiet. The sound of rain was still running like a silver drumming river, and the shivering hum of the lights was still going, and he could hear Axel's heartbeat (although apparently he was holding his breath). And the grind and flip of Marisse's pages had stopped. Hartley didn't look towards where she was standing at the counter, kept his eyes on Axel.

"I swear on Squeaks," he said. "She's the one you picked up by the tail that one time. My first one. And on Coffee, that's—"

"The big one," Axel said. He looked— confused was probably the best Hartley could describe it, but he thought perhaps that was a start. "Yeah, I know."

"Alright." Hartley sighed. "I promise on them. I swear on them as surety, if you'd feel more comfortable hearing me put it that way." Axel made a low _heh_ noise that didn't seem to be an argument, at least. "I will not call in whatever favour you think you owe me for interceding with Cold. Does that help?"

"You nearly killed me over your rats," Axel said after a minute. He didn't seem upset by the fact, as far as Hartley could tell.

"I recall Cold was upset with me then, too." Hartley sipped at his coffee and winced. It had grown colder than he liked.

"You're cracked, Piper." It sounded more absent-minded than insulting. "'m I just supposed to pretend it didn't happen?"

"I really don't know if I'm the best person to give you advice about coping mechanisms," Hartley said dryly. He'd been hoping—a little—for a snicker, but Axel just kept looking at him. Hartley wished he could pin down the expression, but tired and a little plaintive was all he could pick out. "Whatever you do, I wouldn't recommend dismissing Cold's reaction. Beyond that..." He shrugged a little.

"'kay." Axel took a swallow of his own coffee, then put the cup down with a grimace. "Why'd you do it? Really?"

"What?"

"Your rats... okay." He began spinning his cup again, but it rattled out of true and he caught it before it tipped over. "If I don't owe you, and you don't like me—" his mouth twisted a little at that— "I get it, that's fine, but— you know?"

Hartley pushed his coffee to one side and folded his hands together, tacked on a smile. He was at about the end of his patience, he thought, and the words he wanted to use were coming together. _Please don't tell me that the concept of someone behaving altruistically is as utterly foreign to you as the concept of self-restraint_ , maybe, or _Despite your preternaturally adolescent behaviour, I'm sure someone must have acted on your behalf at some point in your life—_

Someone must have.

 _Someone_.

He took a deep breath and let it out. It was three in the morning, the rain was hushing down the windows, and one of them had to be the responsible one.

"I'm feeling rather tired, Axel," he said quietly. "I wouldn't do a good job of discussing my personal motivations at this point. I think I'm going home now. Do you want to split a ride, or would you like to stay here for a while?"

"Yeah, no." Which wasn't really a clear answer, but Axel wasn't sliding out of the booth as he spoke. "I'm gonna stick around for a bit. He nodded at the coffees. "You got it, or—"

"I've got it."

"'kay." He shrugged, looking down at his phone. Hartley took two twenties out of his wallet and left them on the table, called a goodbye to Marisse and headed out.

He woke up when heard Axel coming in later that night, so dark it was edging around to light again. He heard music start playing, something low and droning that didn't quite drown out the dull complaint of bedsprings as someone huddled into the sheets.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title is from _Don Quixote_ ; "It's up to brave hearts, sir, to be patient when things are going badly, as well as being happy when they're going well."


	7. Epilogue.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And this is why Thea Queen has trouble taking Central City supervillains seriously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Please note: this chapter and the previous one were posted at nearly the same time; check to make sure you didn't miss the last one from Hartley's POV?)

**Hartley:** FML.

**Thea:** You never start this. What's up?

**Hartley:** It's apparently very easy for people to believe I'm a bad person.

**Thea:** You're not a bad person, Hartley.

**Hartley:** Given our respective extralegal activites, I find there's a certain irony in you telling me that.

**Thea:** Given our personal history, I want you to tell me who you think knows you better than I do.

**Hartley:** Argumentum ad verecundiam.

**Thea:** Do not make me Google something just so that I can tell you that you're full of it. It's not a bad appeal to an authority when I'm actually an authority on this. This being you.

**Hartley:** You're predisposed to be generous towards me because you like me.

**Thea:** Yes, and you deserve it. Who upset you?

**Hartley:** That guy who's staying with me? The work thing?

**Thea:** Go on.

**Hartley:** I can /hear/ you sharpening a knife when you type that, you know.

**Thea:** It's not a knife. What happened?

[...]

**Thea:** Hartley?

**Hartley:** I don't know.

**Hartley:** That's unusual. 

**Hartley:** He did something stupid and dangerous. Len threatened to kill him. I intervened.

**Thea:** ...okay...

**Hartley:** "Okay"?

**Thea:** I'm reserving judgment until I know what "stupid and dangerous" actually was.

**Hartley:** Fair. But he's being confusing.

**Thea:** Len?

**Hartley:** No, the other one.

**Hartley:** He acted--may I be vulgar?

**Thea:** Please, it's so rare.

**Hartley:** He acted like he wanted to pick a hate-fuck with me, then hid from me for three days when I told him I wasn't interested, then followed me when I went out for coffee last night and was very emphatic about wanting to know what I wanted in exchange.

**Hartley:** I had to swear on my rats to convince him that I wasn't going to hold stopping Len over his head.

**Hartley:** And he /still/ doesn't believe me that I just didn't want him dead in my living room, but now he's acting like everything's okay. And it took a ridiculous amount of effort to get him to that point.

**Hartley:** I'm not a frightening person, Thea! People don't get scared of me!

**Thea:** How angry were you when he did the thing that pissed Len off?

**Hartley:** Pretty furious.

**Thea:** Right. Hartley, it is actually very sensible for people to be scared of you when you're angry.

**Hartley:** Most people aren't.

**Thea:** Most people don't know what you can be like when you're angry. Does this guy?

**Hartley:** ...he's acutely aware of it, now that you mention it.

**Thea:** What happened?

**Hartley:** He hurt Squeaks. Not badly--she was mostly just frightened--but I lost my temper.

**Thea:** Yeah, I'd be scared of you at that point.

**Hartley:** He wasn't scared of me then. He thought that was fine.

**Hartley:** He was scared of me when he thought he owed me something.

**Thea:** He WASN'T scared of you after you lost your temper when he hurt Squeaks?

**Hartley:** Lost my temper and hit him.

**Thea:** ...

**Thea:** Did he hit you back?

**Hartley:** He didn't really get the chance. I think I threw him for a loop. Mick broke it up.

**Thea:** ...

**Thea:** And he thought that was fine.

**Hartley:** As far as I can tell. He's a little hard to read sometimes. But that entire incident was /before/ he made a pass at me, so yes, I'm assuming he wasn't that upset about it.

**Thea:** But he got upset when you intervened after he pissed Len off.

**Hartley:** I would say so, yes.

**Thea:** Wow

**Thea:** I really think you've gotta chalk this one up to him being weird and not to him being right when he decides that you saving his butt means that you're secretly a horrible person in a way that even I haven't picked up on.

**Hartley:** Maybe you're missing the nuances.

**Thea:** Maybe. Probably not.

**Thea:** Look, that whole time he was sure you were holding the Len thing over his head, did you actually get him do anything besides back off? Even before you knew he was freaking out about owing you a favour?

**Hartley:** I asked him to take care of dinner. He ordered a pizza.

**Thea:** ...I think you're okay.

**Thea:** :)

**Hartley:** Maybe.

**Thea:** Trust me.

**Thea:** So this guy. You're still living with him?

**Hartley:** For the moment. I offered to talk to Len if he wanted to move out, but that just seemed to stress him out even more. I don't know if we'll revisit it.

**Thea:** You REALLY need to tell me who the hell he is at some point.

**Hartley:** So you keep saying.

**Thea:** Someday, Hartley. Someday. If I find out you've been rooming with Hannibal Bates, I'm staging an intervention.

**Hartley:** Oh good god, no, I promise.

**Thea:** And you're definitely safe?

**Hartley:** Yes.

**Thea:** Hartley.

**Hartley:** It's fine.

**Thea:** Hartley.

**Thea:** You're my friend. You are the smartest guy I know. I can't imagine you *not* being there. You need to be okay, okay?

**Thea:** So are you *sure* you are going to be safe around this guy? I don't need to make a special effort to get ready for you being hurt?

**Thea:** Because if I do, I can deal with that, but you have to tell me.

**Thea:** Just don't you dare be Ollie at me about this.

**Hartley:** Ouch.

**Hartley:** Thea, I'm safe. I promise. He really wants help with something, and if he hurts me, the working relationship is going to come to an end faster than you can say 'absolute zero' or 'Plank's temperature'.

**Hartley:** He knows that.

**Hartley:** He's frustrating, not stupid.

**Thea:** I still don't like it.

**Hartley:** I know.

**Thea:** Is he sticking around? How long is this work thing?

**Hartley:** Not sure. Someone claiming to be Damien Darhk has been showing up a little in Central. And this guy is very invested in getting rid of whoever's claiming to be Darhk. Family reasons. And none of us want Darhk around either, so...

**Thea:** Funny. I started liking this guy a little better as soon as you said "invested in getting rid of Darhk". 

**Hartley:** He does tend to grow on you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A long odd paean to my fascination with miscommunication, and Axel and Hartley’s differing expectations of behaviour, but it's done. I hope it was at least somewhat entertaining, and I promise to work on something else next year.


End file.
